SINIUS - The Ossuary.

Album: The Ossuary

Artist: SINIUS

Label: Self-released

Catalogue no: N/A

Tracklist:

     1.      As Above So Below

     2.      Eliphas Levi’s Baphomet

     3.      Hermetic Origin

     4.      Microcosm and Macrocosm

The Paris Catacombs: one of those places that over the centuries has accumulated layers and layers of myth and legend. The Ossuary, a project of UK-based sound designer, film composer, and photographer Daljit Kundi, was inspired by this most esoteric of monuments to death, a place wrapped in so much obfuscation and mystery that the lines between fact and fiction often blur, to the detriment of creating a clearer picture. However, as human beings we latch on to the occult aspects of such enigmas, preferring the romantic to the mundane, embroidering and embellishing the tales as the tellings grow, and in the process we make manifest its own genius loci that’s entirely independent of the catacombs’ original purpose. It’s even entered the hallowed precincts of popular culture, in the form of 2014’s As Above, So Below film, which peppered the story with references to mainstays of the Western Magical Tradition and occult conspiracy theory; here I have to admit to having thoroughly enjoyed it, tending as I do towards the occult and esoteric.

It appears that Kundi is also drawn to these aspects too. Even a cursory glance at the track titles will tell you that the project is interested in emphasising the esoteric connections, obviously delving deeply into the myths and legends associated with the place. Prosaically, long-abandoned limestone mines begun in Roman times were reused after public health concerns about overcrowded cemeteries with exposed rotting corpses triggered bouts of deadly disease, finally forcing the authorities to do something. It is said that up to six million individuals are interred here among the estimated 185 miles of tunnels running beneath the city. It isn’t surprising then, when corridors are lined either side with bones, that stories and tales of mysterious events have sprung up and persist.

This four-track album expresses these subterranean concepts in quiet hisses, shimmering planes of drone, whispering winds and exhalations, and crackles and scrapings, creating a range of subdued atmospheres redolent of the grave and of spaces reserved for the dead. This is a place where anything but a whisper is anathema, where the souls and shades of the dead roam randomly in search of a place to rest. These are the nameless and forgotten, the unremembered former inhabitants of the City of Light, now mired in Hadean darkness and oppressive gloom. This really isn’t a fit habitation for the living, but inevitably of course in our quest to conquer the fear of the unknown we’ve introduced light and modern cultural phenomena into its corridors, spoiling and defiling its respectful silences. SINIUS’ compositions go some way in reminding us that even those whose names have been lost to time deserve to rest in peace, to let them exist outside the over-bright world of modern day humanity, and to sleep the long sleep without distraction.

Having outlined the above, that’s not all this music offers. Interweaving between the lines of the purely romanticised aspects attaching to death, the occult layers underpinning our conceptions of the spiritual and esoteric of the darker side of human existence abound here too. There are untapped currents of power here, humming along concealed conduits unavailable to those who aren’t attuned to their frequencies. It’s a multi-layered release, with as many meanings and themes occurring as one can comfortably accommodate. Once can successfully separate them, or view them in combination: either way, I think a close listen will reward the listener, revealing a deep understanding of the streams pertaining to life, death, the universe, and the occult. Take the time to invest your mind into this one – it’s quiet, yes, but then so are the dead, and look how strong an influence over the living they exert in culture. This is the key to this one.

Available as a download from here:

https://sinius.bandcamp.com/album/the-ossuary

Psymon Marshall 2019.

Druhá Smrt - Incarnatium

Album: Incarnatium

Artist: Druhá Smrt

Label: Sombre Soniks

Catalogue no: SomSon129

Tracklist:

     1.      The Ground

     2.      The Event

     3.      In the Hoor Zone

     4.      Breakthrough

Anyone who is familiar with the output of the Sombre Soniks label knows that they specialise in musical explorations of a ritualistic and occult ambient nature, and that they’re mostly invocatory in expression – in other words, the focus is mainly on the ritual aspects. Czech outfit Druhá Smrt go beyond on this recording – creating a suite of cinematic ritual ambient, in the sense that this somehow goes beyond the phenomenological into something approaching a shared universal consciousness. This is the end result of the Great Work, the stripping away of gravity-bound material reality and ego, to reach the Ain, the state of consciousness before the ego/I intervenes and stains it.

To that end, the four pieces on here are made from a warp and weft of luxuriant layers, all of which intertwine in symmetrical and soaring harmony, never once touching the ground but instead inhabiting the clouds and the regions above. Up here, where the sky is clear and the air unsullied by the polluting effluent of mankind, boundaries do not exist and the paths between one and the stars are devoid of obstructions. ‘The Ground’ may be the starting point, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the earth we stand upon – ground in this case could mean the metaphysical and philosophical framework upon which the spiritual work is built. Once the foundations are erected, and all is in alignment, ‘The Event’ merely becomes a catalyst to set off the reactions needed to free the forces that will push us further.

‘In the Hoor Zone’ delineates the breaking of shackles, the renunciation of material imperfection, and the denying of gravity’s hold on the soul. But it’s also a prelude and a signpost, the depiction of a state less encumbered by crassness and banality. Rising chords and chiming bells presage a new beginning, an invitation to prepare for an act of final realisation and enlightenment. And ‘Breakthrough’, the concluding track, is the initiation into the Absolute, the ineffable union, the complete separation from what came before, both physically and temporally. From here on bliss is its own reward, and fulfilment has been attained.

Collectively, the four pieces plot the route of an inward journey, from base material to enlightenment, a straight line in effect from earth (Malkuth) to Union (Ain). Of course, the way is more complicated than that, but perhaps Incarnatium can be seen as the prototype of the spiritual being’s path, and a gazetteer of landmarks along the way. It’s both an invitation, and an encouragement, to participate. Let this guide you on your way.   

Psymon Marshall 2019. 

Ghoul-Kin - Seesar

Album: Ghoul-Kin

Artist: Seesar

Label: Sombre Soniks

Catalogue no: N/A

Tracklist:

1.      The Time-Travelling Ghoul-Kin
2.      The Hanging Witch
3.      The Evil-Looking Boy
4.      The Disappearance of 1926
5.      The Eve of the Battle of Sarkomand
6.      The Negotiations with King Randolph
7.      The Coronation of the Chieftain

Seesar is an American musician and sound creator, now transplanted to Shanghai, China, after having studied music in London, UK. He’s always been interested in the Lovecraftian Mythos as inspiration for cycles of musical composition, and Ghoul-Kin, his second release on Sombre Soniks, is based entirely around a single character: Richard Upton Pickman. The name is most associated with the tale ‘Pickman’s Model’ (1927), wherein the titular character is associated with ultra-realistic painted depictions of strange creatures, which Seesar here denotes as Ghoul-Kin. Over the course of the tale, Pickman himself becomes one of the Ghoul-Kin, and disappears to parts unknown. He is encountered again in ‘The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath’ (also 1927) in which he has been transformed into a ghoul, and on this recording Seesar constructs a narrative connecting the two tales. 

Seesar categorises his compositions as Lovecraftian Futurist, embracing as it does the concepts of the Lovecraft Mythos and the ideas of the Italian Futurists. The music itself is created via the use of unfamiliar instrumentation (such as bicycle tyres and spokes, suitcases, hairbrushes and combs, and a television wall mounting bracket), which has the effect of forcing us to think of sound in new ways as well as stripping away any specific cultural associations. The overall effect is to tip us into an alien landscape, where dissonance and consonance exist in a state of nervous tension, where positive and negative are practically one and the same quality.

But, as noted by the artist, it isn’t necessary to understand the academic underpinnings of the compositions to get something from them, or to find oneself enveloped by the atmospherics delineated here. The music is slippery, in the sense that the sounds employed are organically-structured even though there is intention behind every note. And if we tap into the mindscapes of Lovecraft’s Mythos stories, these dreamlike assemblages, disjointed and freeform as they may appear to be, do in fact make complete sense – after all our ordered world is adapted to the mental and physical view we have of our reality and so it must follow that the worlds Lovecraft envisioned are themselves fully adapted to the mental and physical frameworks of the creatures inhabiting them. Outsiders will find them disorientating and perhaps sickening.

Having noted that herein lie works which very much stray outside the bounds of what most would define as music, nevertheless it isn’t cacophonous, atonal, or dissonant. In fact the squeaks, scrapings, screechings, percussive elements, crackles, and strange voices coalesce into something which is strangely beautiful and beautifully strange. The moods essayed here have the same goals as those of dark ambient, or noise – they’re meant to take us out of ourselves, to transplant us out of the familiar and comfortable, to a reality whose components and guidelines differ vastly from our own.

Being conversant with most of Lovecraft’s work, I can say that the atmospheres described in his work have been captured very closely by the seven tracks put forth here. I’ve heard other musical interpretations of Lovecraftian aesthetics, mostly dark/cinematic ambient, which paint a picture of brooding malice and poison, but for me Lovecraft depicted the utter banality of the monstrous and uncaring neutrality of the ‘gods’ inhabiting his imagined universe – these ‘creatures’ neither cared about us nor noticed our presence, and they merely acted out their natures according to their kind. Viewed in this context then, these compositions contain a kind of aesthetic whose definition is neither good nor evil - it just is as it is. For me, that is truly Lovecraftian.

Psymon Marshall 2019. 

Akoustik Timbre Frekuency - Thee Dreamachine Sessions.

Album: Thee Dreamachine Sessions

Artist: Akoustik Timbre Frekuency

Label: Sombre Soniks

Catalogue no: N/A

Youtube Videos.

Tracklist: 

1. Soundtraks for Thee Dreamachine 01

2. Soundtraks for Thee Dreamachine 02

3. Soundtraks for Thee Dreamachine 03

4. Soundtraks for Thee Dreamachine 04

5. Soundtraks for Thee Dreamachine 05

6. Soundtraks for Thee Dreamachine 06

7. The Dreamachine Sessions (Mix)

Ritual has always been around but, rather than being static, it’s an ever-evolving practise, even if its basis remains firmly embedded in the past. Brion Gysin added to the paraphernalia of ritual by creating the Dreamachine in the heady days of psychic and hallucinogenic experimentation way back in the optimistic (and mystic) sixties. Roundabout 1961 Gysin collaborated with Ian Somerville, a mathematician and computer scientist at Oxford University, and together they created the device. A description of the ‘machine’ and it effects are outside the scope of the present review, but information is plentiful on the web for the intrepid and curious.

The six tracks elucidated on here accompany a series of six short films on the device itself and Brion Gysin, its progenitor, plus an hour long mix which is to be used in conjunction with the Dreamachine. Akoustik Timbre Frekuency here rely on very traditional ritualistic sounds – bells, cymbals, singing bowls, flutes, harking back to the very roots of ritualistic practise. In addition field recordings have been thrown into the mix, creating a sensory dissonance as it enable us to see the world in a different light. Without the context of the films however it is difficult place the pieces into some kind of framework that makes sense. But, taking it purely as an academic exercise, and taking the hour-long mix as a reviewing cue, I will be concentrating my focus on that track so I can present some kind of an overview. 

The aim of ritual, of course, is to release us from the physical and mental constraints of our mundane reality and call forth atavistic entities and manifest spiritual archetypes into being. It’s no exaggeration to say that what we’re presented with here not only achieves that, but practically throws us out of the normal and into the supernormal. And that’s just the music – if we wish to use the Dreamachine alongside it undoubtedly its effects will be more completely felt. Clearly, the limbic system, responsible in part for emotion, learning, and memory, is meant to be aroused and activated together with the excitation of our visual faculties, without or without the visual cues afforded by Gysin and Somerville’s device.

It’s actually quite remarkable the effect such stripped-back and ‘primitive’ music can have on the mind, its otherworldliness a passport to entry into a realm normally off-limits and hidden away from our senses. Also its ringing clarity clears the mind of all humdrum thoughts and images, propelling us into a dimension where everyday preoccupations play no part. Knowing this, and performed whilst meditating on the steadily flickering rhythms of the Dreamachine’s light pulses, access to the visual part of our brains (to say nothing of the deeply buried ancestral memories each of us carries within us) the efficacy of the machine can only be multiplied in manifold directions. 

Saying that, having a Dreamachine isn’t compulsory – this is music to help us reconnect with ourselves, or at least those parts of ourselves that have been inhumed by the detritus of the world we live in. Listening to this, the psychic traveller can leave this dimension behind, bending time, place, and being at will. Sit back, turn the lights off, and simply let the sounds of time immemorial seep into every nook and cranny of your body. Your mind, once attuned, will do the rest. More than that, it will refresh one’s soul. 

Psymon Marshall 2019.

IrisLight - Aeturnum

Album: Aeturnum

Artist: IrisLight

Available at:

https://irislight.bandcamp.com/album/aeternum?fbclid=IwAR012ypTgZgsVp7IKMD1TWV0ToaolBGnB-Qc9kf_FmoWt0YXUL4mfSvMMqs

Tracks:

1. Novus

2. Infernum

3. Spatium

4. Aeturnum.

5. Damnum

6. Transitum

7. Cecidimus

Deep, cold, isolationist drone ambient from the artist formerly known as Generic, broadcast from somewhere between the lightless abyssal depths of a vast ocean and the deserted streets of some cyclopean Lovecraftian ruin. And in that enormous space betwixt lies a complete geography of loneliness and madness, spiced with the utter meaninglessness of existence. It’s all coloured in the deepest hues of emptiness and desolation, and yet, its shimmering coruscation and scintillation holds the purest of frosty beauty, and that beauty is a wonder to behold.

In the context of these seven tracks, darkness is a relative concept. Ever visited an old building that even on the brightest of days appears to be hiding something malignant within its walls? This is the nearest description that comes anywhere near distilling the essence of the compositions here. Resonant bells and gongs, stretched out into timelessness, cutting banshee winds that penetrate deep into the marrow, and frigidity that not only steals warmth but also all thought. There’s nothing here but unbroken and unchanging landscapes, a place where a second lasts as long as a millennium, and simultaneously where a millennium lasts as long as a second.

A couple of examples will suffice. The album opener ‘Novus’ sets the tone being painted here, assailing our ears with ringing tones and wails the sources of which are obscured by a thick veil of mist. ‘Spatium’ is the slow subterranean heartbeat of this frozen realm, and album closer ‘Cecidimus’ (Latin for shrivel) is the logical endpoint – dissolution and disintegration of self and existence, the scattering of everything we were and have known to the cold reaches of the ends of the universe.

From a personal perspective, I connected on so many levels. That suspicion that there’s far more to reality than what we’re able to perceive with our senses, that perhaps there are forces of which we’re unaware shaping everything around us, and that furthermore we have no control over those forces. We’re reduced to tiny insignificant specks smaller than the atoms which compose us. Salvation and redemption are beyond us and impossible to grasp: we live in an entirely neutral universe that neither cares if we live or die. If we destroy ourselves as a species there will be no one to mark our passing, nor anyone to remember us.

Closest thing to an exposition on the beauty within futility I’ve heard in a long time. Excellent! 

Psymon Marshall Jones 2019